By Priya Chandrasekaran
In one of my last sessions at the Writing Center before spring break, I worked with a student who needed to revise an English essay. His professor had met with him that afternoon and offered comments, the gist of which was that the student needed to clarify his thesis and improve the structure of his argument. The professor’s ideas were very much in line with what I would have suggested. The student still needed further explanation, as well as some practical suggestions and moral support. It was a session in which I asked a lot of questions and took notes; I then reflected what I had written back to the student so he could hear his own insights articulated a bit differently. Quite a bit was left undone at the end of the session, but we had had drafted a new thesis statement and hashed out a few potential topic sentences.
The week after spring break, the same student returned for a second appointment. In the interim, he had typed up the sentences we had worked on and incorporated them into the paper, but hadn’t had time to do much else. After looking over his paper to jog my memory, I suggested we work on the argument and topic sentences. He said, “But we already did that.” When I told him I thought that, despite the work we’d done, there was still work to do and that it might even involve revising those same sentences further, he was noticeably surprised. I told him, “I’m in a similar position with something I’ve been working on. Believe me, I understand.”
This was true. I had spent much of the break revising an article I had expected to finish on the first day. The task had taken me so long that I missed the deadline I had long been aiming for, and I submitted it a day late with my fingers crossed. It was frustrating how much I had underestimated the time that would be required to address something that just wasn’t working in the framing and structure of my argument.
Our second session was similar to the first, in that it felt productive and it felt unfinished. After he left, I thought about how often I’ve witnessed students at those moments when they realize just how much work writing is. I’ve watched the same students have that realization multiple times. And as a writer, I repeatedly experience it. Particularly now, as educational and professional rubrics focus on distinct marketable “skills” and clear benchmarks of achievement, the goal of learning is equated with acquiring mastery and efficiency. However, even after decades of devoting a lot of time to writing in different forms, I’ve only become “more efficient” at things like identifying when I’m falling into a habit or noticing more quickly when something I thought was really great really isn’t. For me, all this experience hasn’t led to fewer drafts or less struggle or consistently better work. Rather than mastery and efficiency, what it has given me is discipline, resolve and some faith in the process.
I wouldn’t necessarily tell a student all that, as it could make writing seem more daunting. But I would like to find a better way to shift students’ expectations and convey just how circular this path of learning can be.
Published May 8, 2017
